Tupac movie will start production in Atlanta in 2014

Rebecca Keegan

A long-gestating movie about the late rapper Tupac Shakur is closer to fruition, with Morgan Creek Productions and Emmet Furla Films announcing Thursday that they plan to co-finance and co-produce the film.

Shakur's mother, Afeni Shakur, will executive produce the movie, which is scheduled to begin production in Atlanta next year.

Eddie Gonzales and Jeremy Haft, who wrote the 2011 direct-to-video crime drama "Street Kings II," are currently working on a script about the influential rapper, who has sold more than 75 million albums.

Shakur, who was born in Harlem in 1971 and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1988, was a vocal participant in the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud of the 1990s before he was killed in a shooting in Las Vegas in 1996.

Shakur's dramatic life has been the subject of multiple documentaries, including the 2003 film "Tupac: Resurrection" and 2002's "Biggie and Tupac" about his rivalry with New York rapper Biggie Smalls.

Previous efforts to get a narrative film made fell apart over negotiations for creative control between producers and Shakur's mother.

At one point, "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua was attached.

No director has yet been named for the rebooted project, and no actor has yet been cast in the title role.